USCCB: Join with Pope Francis, Bishop Dewane and Catholics across the country! Pledge to end the death penalty

[redbaron162]

I, being very much in favor of the death penalty, would be against it IF there was a safe alternative…but speaking as someone with years of experience working around jails, prisons, and corrections officers I can soundly safe that the prisons are NOT safe, neither for the inmates and prisoners and especially not for the Corrections officers.

If we have known violent individuals who continue to commit acts of violence while incarnated then I believe the just and merciful decision is execution. You must also consider that effects the continued acts of violence have on others. The amount of murders, assaults and injuries for corrections officers is sky high. In addition we are seeing record rates of PTSD and similar mental health diagnosis for law enforcement officers who have to keep being placed at risk of being assaulted, raped, and murdered by these individuals who are “safely separated from society”.

Now as for an individual who committed a crime, even a heinous one, who then demonstrates they can be safely incarcerated then yes I agree the death penalty could and possibly should be waived. However for violent criminals who repeatedly commit acts of violence while incarcerated or once released I believe the death penalty is more likely to be the appropriate course of action.

I do agree that the death penalty is too inconsistently utilized to be of effect and it should be reformed in such a way to encourage peaceful incarceration and discourage violence in prison. For example John is convicted of murder and gets the death penalty IF he continues to exhibit violent behavior while in prison, however if he demonstrates that he can be peaceful then it should just be life in prison.

 

[Ender]

I think the question is not objective nature of Capital punishment but the specific question of Capital punishment in the world today.

I agree. I think this is exactly the situation. The morality of capital punishment is unchanged, and is indeed unchangeable, but in the prudential judgment of the last three popes its use in modern societies is unwise.

For example, I do not think anyone would say God was immoral for instituting Capital punishment for the protection of His chosen people.

It was not instituted as a matter of protection, but as a matter of justice.

So forgetting hypothetical situation, real, unreal, past an future, what is moral today, at this time. The Church teaching on this seems pretty uniform.

Be careful here: what is moral today is what was moral before. Morality does not change with time or place. What acts are wise today may well be different than what was done in the past, but that is not a moral distinction.

Ender

 

[Ender]

Let us do justice by situating the quote of His Excellency Archbishop Gregory you cite, giving it now in the broader context he gave it and subsequently expanded it via the thought His Eminence Avery Cardinal Dulles

What point are you making here? The key points I took from both Gregory and Dulles is that (1) the traditional teaching of the church is unchanged: the State has the legitimate right to employ capital punishment ("theological affirmations, which allow for the death penalty in certain instances"), and (2) opposition to its use today is a prudential judgment ("a prudential application of these principles to the contingent circumstances of contemporary society.")

Does anything Pope Francis has said change this understanding?

Ender

 

[Ender]

I, being very much in favor of the death penalty, would be against it IF there was a safe alternative…but speaking as someone with years of experience working around jails, prisons, and corrections officers I can soundly safe that the prisons are NOT safe, neither for the inmates and prisoners and especially not for the Corrections officers.

Does the question of the use of capital punishment turn solely on whether we can safely protect ourselves against repeat killers? Should we abandon the idea that a person deserves to be executed as the just punishment for the crime he has already committed? Do we reject the concept of retribution?

It may well be true that we should not employ capital punishment for any number of practical reasons, but I am unwilling to accept arguments that its use is illegitimate. I also do not accept the belief that a secondary objective of punishment like protection should determine the validity of its use over against punishment’s primary end which is retribution…that is, justice. Do we no longer believe that murderers deserve death?
*Is it possible for punishment to signify the gravity of crimes which deserve death if their perpetrators are never visited with execution? This seems unlikely… Genesis says murderers deserve death *because *life is precious; man is made in the image of God. How convincing is our reverence for life if its mockers are suffered to live? *(J. Budziszewski, Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice)
Ender

 

[redbaron162]

Does the question of the use of capital punishment turn solely on whether we can safely protect ourselves against repeat killers? Should we abandon the idea that a person deserves to be executed as the just punishment for the crime he has already committed? Do we reject the concept of retribution?

It may well be true that we should not employ capital punishment for any number of practical reasons, but I am unwilling to accept arguments that its use is illegitimate. I also do not accept the belief that a secondary objective of punishment like protection should determine the validity of its use over against punishment’s primary end which is retribution…that is, justice. Do we no longer believe that murderers deserve death?
*Is it possible for punishment to signify the gravity of crimes which deserve death if their perpetrators are never visited with execution? This seems unlikely… Genesis says murderers deserve death *because **life is precious; man is made in the image of God. How convincing is our reverence for life if its mockers are suffered to live? (J. Budziszewski, Capital Punishment: The Case for Justice)
Ender

This is a good point and one that I do not have the answer too

 

[Don_Ruggero]

what is moral today is what was moral before.

You are also wrong here.

 

[Ender]

You are also wrong here.

I did not know that. I claimed that morality does not change with time or place. Are you saying that what was immoral yesterday may become moral today, or that what is immoral here may be moral somewhere else?

Ender

 

[ARSpade]

My conscience says that the death penalty is not only okay, but necessary and should be expanded.

 

[Seamus_L]

Yesterday, one of the most notorious child murderers in the history of the UK, Ian Brady died of natural causes at age 79 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors_murders. Perhaps I’m a bad modern Catholic, but quite frankly, that man should have died 5 decades ago at the end of a rope.

 

[Ender]

Yesterday, one of the most notorious child murderers in the history of the UK, Ian Brady died of natural causes at age 79 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors_murders. Perhaps I’m a bad modern Catholic, but quite frankly, that man should have died 5 decades ago at the end of a rope.

For a punishment to be just it must be commensurate with the severity of the crime. To apply to a notorious child killer the same punishment that is applied for lesser crimes was either unjust or a tacit admission that his crime was no more serious than those crimes for which the same penalty was administered.

In speaking of capital punishment, the Catechism of Trent observed that:*Of these remedies {for the disease of murder} the most efficacious is to form a just conception of the wickedness of murder.
*It would seem that we have lost any real “conception of the wickedness of murder”.

Ender

 

[josh987654321]

josh,the bishops are still vocal against abortion and euthanasia too. This pledge doesn’t detract from those efforts, it just adds to the overall respect of life.

Okay, that’s good. I just don’t want those to take some kind of ‘backstage’.

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[josh987654321]

I, being very much in favor of the death penalty, would be against it IF there was a safe alternative…but speaking as someone with years of experience working around jails, prisons, and corrections officers I can soundly safe that the prisons are NOT safe, neither for the inmates and prisoners and especially not for the Corrections officers.

If we have known violent individuals who continue to commit acts of violence while incarnated then I believe the just and merciful decision is execution. You must also consider that effects the continued acts of violence have on others. The amount of murders, assaults and injuries for corrections officers is sky high. In addition we are seeing record rates of PTSD and similar mental health diagnosis for law enforcement officers who have to keep being placed at risk of being assaulted, raped, and murdered by these individuals who are “safely separated from society”.

Now as for an individual who committed a crime, even a heinous one, who then demonstrates they can be safely incarcerated then yes I agree the death penalty could and possibly should be waived. However for violent criminals who repeatedly commit acts of violence while incarcerated or once released I believe the death penalty is more likely to be the appropriate course of action.

I do agree that the death penalty is too inconsistently utilized to be of effect and it should be reformed in such a way to encourage peaceful incarceration and discourage violence in prison. For example John is convicted of murder and gets the death penalty IF he continues to exhibit violent behavior while in prison, however if he demonstrates that he can be peaceful then it should just be life in prison.

I understand what your saying, my only concern with the death penalty, is that it is always easier and cheaper to give someone the death penalty, so over time, it generally leans that way, and when you have it, you also have to factor in a fallible system run by fallible people.

I would prefer if there were other ways to keep correction officers, other inmates etc safe.

It’s one thing to kill in self defense, but it’s another to kill someone who isn’t attacking you, simply lay them down on a table and inject them with poison. All the executioner would see I believe is a man/woman in certain colored cloths and chained up (Maybe the executioner doesn’t see/hear them at all). That’s definitely not healthy/right. And what about the correction officers who have to chain him up and take him to the table (forcefully if necessary?) where he/she will be executed?

I hope this has helped

God Bless You

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I did not know that.

Evidently.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

In speaking of capital punishment, the Catechism of Trent observed that:*Of these remedies {for the disease of murder} the most efficacious is to form a just conception of the wickedness of murder.
*It would seem that we have lost any real “conception of the wickedness of murder”.

Thankfully that is not where the Successors of the Apostles, as the College of Bishops, are today as the Church’s Magisterium…nor where they have been for some generations, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This illustrates quite well, however, how and why there were many good reasons that the Bishops of the Catholic world, gathered in synod, petitioned the Vicar of Christ to grant the Church a new universal catechism, seeing as the Roman Catechism was over 400 years old and was in urgent need of updating…including among many points the morality of employing the death penalty in a contemporary context, well articulated as the confrontation between the Gospel of Life and a culture of death.

The catechism’s expression that touches upon the Church, society and capital punishment – for which the Church has had to beg forgiveness relative to the past – is well placed side by side to the issue of morality and slavery, as it was in the 16th century and expressed in Trent’s catechism.
*The unjust possession and use of what belongs to another are expressed by different names, according to the diversity of the objects taken without the consent and knowledge of the owners. To take any private property from a private individual is called theft; from the public, peculation. **To enslave a freeman, or appropriate the slave of another is called man-stealing ** /…/
*
It goes without saying that the very institution of slavery is immoral and those who traffic in human beings or are the victims of human trafficking are to be rightly and instantly emancipated from being a hostage.

Or the place of women in society, which was particularly lamentable in the era of Trent.
*…to pay particular attention to their domestic concerns should also be especial objects of their attention. The wife should love to remain at home, unless compelled by necessity to go out; and she should never presume to leave home without her husband’s consent.

Again, and in this the conjugal union chiefly consists, let wives never forget that next to God they are to love their husbands, to esteem them above all others, yielding to them in all things not inconsistent with Christian piety, a willing and ready obedience*
Which gives us great reason to thank God for The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

 

[Ender]

Evidently.

I am surprised you find retorts like this appropriate. I expected better of someone with your background. Perhaps you’d consider responding to the issue I actually raised. When I said “what is moral today is what was moral before”, you claimed that I was wrong. I elaborated on that point:*I claimed that morality does not change with time or place. Are you saying that what was immoral yesterday may become moral today, or that what is immoral here may be moral somewhere else?
*Are you prepared to answer the question, and maybe provide an explanation?

Ender

 

[pnewton]

Are you saying that what was immoral yesterday may become moral today, or that what is immoral here may be moral somewhere else?

[/INDENT]Are you prepared to answer the question, and maybe provide an explanation?

EnderThe answer is quite simple. You sum up the entirety of an moral decision with a simple pronoun, “what”. By changing the time, you also change the subject of this pronoun, making it impossible for it to reference both a past and present event, just as much as changing any other of a myriad of factors. For example, at all times changing the cause of capital punishment would change whether it was moral. One could be morally executed for certain high crimes morally, at one time, but not morally executed for being a Jew, or failing to salute Hitler. So what was moral in one situation was not moral in another, if you ignore that your pronoun, “what” stands for two separate situations.

 

[Ender]

Thankfully that is not where the Successors of the Apostles, as the College of Bishops, are today as the Church’s Magisterium…nor where they have been for some generations, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Since the citation of Trent was in reference to forming a “just conception of the wickedness of murder” it isn’t clear why you think we should change from what was expressed then (“The murderer is the worst enemy of his species, and consequently of nature.”) to …what, exactly? Should we no longer consider murder as all that wicked? What were you objecting to?

… the Roman Catechism was over 400 years old and was in urgent need of updating…including among many points the morality of employing the death penalty in a contemporary context, well articulated as the confrontation between the Gospel of Life and a culture of death.

If you mean we should consider prudential reasons for opposing the application of capital punishment in today’s societies, that is a reasonable suggestion. If you are suggesting that, absent prudential reasons there is a moral objection to its use, that the church’s doctrine was wrong until 1995, then you have a steeper hill to climb.

The catechism’s expression that touches upon the Church, society and capital punishment – for which the Church has had to beg forgiveness relative to the past – is well placed side by side to the issue of morality and slavery, as it was in the 16th century and expressed in Trent’s catechism.

This is interesting but irrelevant. The issue is capital punishment, not slavery.

Or the place of women in society, which was particularly lamentable in the era of Trent.

Equally irrelevant. Do you have anything that pertains to the actual subject?

Which gives us great reason to thank God for The Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I agree. I just wish someone would clarify section 2267.

Ender

 

[Don_Ruggero]

I am surprised you find retorts like this appropriate. I expected better of someone with your background. Perhaps you’d consider responding to the issue I actually raised. When I said “what is moral today is what was moral before”, you claimed that I was wrong. I elaborated on that point:*I claimed that morality does not change with time or place. Are you saying that what was immoral yesterday may become moral today, or that what is immoral here may be moral somewhere else?
*Are you prepared to answer the question, and maybe provide an explanation?

Ender

Given how many times the matter has been explained to you, as a simple search of your posting history indicates? No.

 

[Ender]

The answer is quite simple. You sum up the entirety of an moral decision with a simple pronoun, “what”. By changing the time, you also change the subject of this pronoun, making it impossible for it to reference both a past and present event, just as much as changing any other of a myriad of factors.

Lord, communication just shouldn’t be this difficult. Posit the same crime in two different eras. Are murders committed for identical reasons, under similar circumstances equally immoral regardless of when and where the acts were committed? I’m not asking if you can imagine different circumstances; I’m asking if similar acts in similar circumstances are equally immoral irrespective of time and place?

Are you suggesting that morality changes over time? I realize that what individuals perceive to be immoral can change, but that says nothing about what is objectively immoral. Can something that is objectively immoral today become moral tomorrow?

Ender

 

[Don_Ruggero]

This is interesting but irrelevant. The issue is capital punishment, not slavery.

Ender

Really? You find it irrelevant? How very sad